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Organization Studies
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What Goes Online Comes Offline: Knowledge Management System Use in a Soft Bureaucracy

Emmanuelle Vaast

Long Island University, New York, USA, emmanuelle.vaast{at}liu.edu

This paper investigates when and how online practices (i.e. practices of management and use of web-based Information Technology) impact offline practices (i.e. regular work practices and communication patterns) within a bureaucratic environment. A case study of implementation and use of a Knowledge Management System by members of a network of practice within the bureaucratic environment of a public administration is interpreted through a situated learning perspective. This lens helps us to understand the process of emergence of continuity between online and offline practices. Findings indicate that the constructed continuity within the network of practice emerged from a combination of structural changes in the environment and of the involvement of key actors who actively encouraged others to integrate their online practices into their regular activities. The paper helps us to understand the processes of construction of continuity of online and offline practices and the bounded impacts of this continuity within bureaucracies. Such continuity may contribute to the circumscribed emergence of a soft bureaucracy in which professional competences and exchanges are recognized and encouraged, while the structural features of decision making, control, and resource allocation remain unchanged.

Key Words: Online and offline practices • interpretive case study • Knowledge Management System • network of practice • continuity • soft bureaucracy

Organization Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3, 283-306 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840607075997
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Introduction to the Special Issue: Online Communities
Organization Studies, March 1, 2007; 28(3): 277 - 281.
[Abstract] [PDF]